Fuller Road to see changes

The Albany County Department of Public Works is in the process of developing a plan to reconstruct 1.7 miles of Fuller Road and Washington Avenue Extension that will affect the towns of Colonie and Guilderland.

The plan has been in the works since 2002 when the County Capital Plan Committee and the County Legislature approved the project after considering certain selection criteria, such as pavement condition, maintenance costs, accident history, and public and staff input.

This is a big project and it will be a big inconvenience, said Pat Kanneally, the project manager for Greenman-Pederson, Inc., the consultants for Albany County Public Works. "But then there won't be anyone out there fixing potholes and doing maintenance work for a very long time afterwards."

In 2007, the County Capital Plan Committee and the County Legislature approved $12 million for the corridor project, which consists of Western Avenue to Washington Avenue, and Interstate 90 to Central Avenue. The corridor project has 100 percent county funding.

The intersection project was also approved at that time, which consists of work on Fuller Road and Washington Avenue Extension for $4.9 million. The intersection project also has $2 million in federal funding.

A detailed design is expected to be made during the summer and into the winter of 2008.

Albany County Department of Public Works plans to begin the construction in April of 2009 and end around November of 2010.

Kanneally pointed out that they only have preliminary plans and that nothing has been decided yet.

"The University of Albany and Nanotech are in the process of developing their own master plan," he said, "and we don't want to finalize anything until they do, so we can make sure our plan complements theirs."